“It will be very easy for you. You’ll pick up a few doses at a time from me, and I’ll text you addresses and first names. You’ll deliver the product, collect the money, and then stay for a little while to socialize. That part is important. That’s how we don’t get caught. That’s why I need someone like you.”
I felt sick. “You deliver to Howell kids.”
He hesitated. “I did. I’m phasing that out. It has to be one of the Howell kids who stole from me, so I don’t feel like doing business with them right now. It’s mostly going to be to former prep schoolers who stayed in the city to go to college. You know the landscape, and you’ll pass.”
“How long do I have to do this for?”
“You don’t give me any trouble, you’ll be out in Texas by January. Gives me enough time to find a replacement.”
I cast about desperately for an ejector seat. “If I find the thief in the meantime, will you let me stop earlier?” I asked, feeling feverish.
He cocked his head to the side. “That’s an interesting question.” He paused a moment. “You’ve got a deal.” He stuck out his hand.
I recoiled. “No thanks.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t be like that. This will be fun!”
“Not for me.”
“We’ll see. Want some pizza?”
If I ate anything, I knew I would throw up. I shook my head. He nodded. “I understand. Go back up to Simone’s apartment.”
I started to leave but stopped at the doorway. “How did you know my friend lived here?”
He walked over to the pizza box. “Because I live here. Sometimes, anyway.” He looked up at me. “I’m glad she’s made some friends. She’s had a rough couple of years. We’ll talk soon.”
Mason turned back to the pizza box, and I momentarily locked eyes with Jerry. He gave me a small shrug. There was no help to be had there.
I felt like Alice trying to scramble back up the rabbit hole, only to keep sliding back down.
Simone’s front door was still unlocked, so I let myself in.
I took off Simone’s shoes and carried them down the hallway. The silence was suspicious until I made it to her bedroom and saw Simone and Gilly sitting as far away from each other as possible. They had each chosen a corner and were facing in opposite directions, noses stuck in separate textbooks. They were so bent on ignoring each other that I had to rap on the doorframe to alert them to my return.
“Do you guys want to tell me what your deal is?” I asked once they had looked up, losing patience. “This is just weird now.”
They exchanged a quick, intense glance. “How’d it go?” Simone asked, ignoring my question.
“Not great,” I said. Frustration broke in a wave over my head, and I kicked the door so many times that I lost my balance and fell down with a yell.
Simone and Gilly looked at each other again. “What happened?” Simone started to ask, shooting an alarmed glance at the newly scuffed woodwork, but was interrupted by a door slamming.
“Sugar, you left the door open,” called out a musical southern voice. “Daddy would have hit the ceiling if he’d gotten home first.” I heard heels getting kicked off and quick footsteps down the hall to her room. “Have you eaten yet, baby girl? I picked up some entrées at the Whole Foods buffet.” Simone’s mom collided with me in her hurry to get to her daughter. She squealed and gave me a little hug. “Oooh, I’m sorry, darling, I didn’t see you. You must be Kendall! Simone’s told me about her new girlfriend. I’m Lorraine Moody.”
I don’t know what I had expected exactly from Simone’s mother, but this wasn’t it. She was a small, curvy, Chinese woman dressed all in white and beige, down to the pearls in her ears and around her neck. The only exception was a red paper flower clipping back her long, wavy hair. She looked young, and her eyes danced.
I looked from her to Simone. Simone actually looked a lot like her, but the bizzarro version, with the firm set of her mouth and blunt eyes. I turned back to Lorraine.
“Yeah, that’s me. It’s nice to meet you.” I stuck out my hand, but she had completely lost interest in me. She was gazing past me. Finally, she clapped her hands together in delight and rushed forward.
“Mikey,” she cried, throwing her arms around him. He had stood up when she came into the room and cautiously returned the hug.
“Oh, Mikey, let me look at you.” She stepped back and put her hands on his face, turning it first to the left and then to the right. “You look so handsome. Didn’t I tell you your skin would clear up by high school?”
“Hi, Lorraine,” said Gilly, smiling sheepishly. “It’s good to see you.”
“Good? Honey, it’s divine seeing you back in this apartment.” She finally let him go and stepped away with clasped hands. “To hell with Whole Foods, I’m making you fried chicken.” She kissed him on the cheek. Then she turned to Simone and kissed her on both cheeks, throwing both of her arms around her daughter’s shoulders in a squeeze, and practically skipped out of the room.
I turned to Simone and Gilly, who were both innocently looking into the middle distance. Gilly in particular had the expression of a dog that had just peed on the rug and was hoping that you wouldn’t notice.
“Should I be expecting an explanation?” I asked, crossing my arms. “Or is that unreasonable of me?”
Simone sighed. “Look, we were friends when we were kids.”
“Apparently, really good friends!”
“When we were kids,” she countered. “We haven’t spoken since seventh grade.”
“Because Simi is a traitor and weak of will,” muttered Gilly.
Simone hissed back, “Because Mikey is a jealous, stunted little—”
“Kids.” Lorraine poked her head back into the room. “Are all three of you going to be here for dinner? Mikey, I’m not letting you out of my sight—I already texted your mom—but Kendall, I don’t have your parents’ numbers.”
All three of us started protesting at the same time, but Lorraine was only looking at me, so I managed to force out, “That’s really nice of you, Mrs. Moody, but I have to get home.”
I really did. I needed to lie down and be catatonic. She must have seen the distress on my face, because she made a genteel “say no more” gesture and left the room with a smile.
Simone, however, turned to me with what I think would have been a hurt expression had her features been accustomed to arranging themselves into something stronger than mild irritation.
Meanwhile, Gilly grabbed my arm. “Don’t leave me here. I’m begging you.”
I shook him off. “I’m not in the mood,” I snapped. “Thanks for asking, Simone, but it did not go well with Mason.”
“What happened?”
Without warning, my lungs hollowed out.
I sat down on the bed, breathing too hard to stand. “I need some water,” I gasped.
“Here,” came Simone’s voice as she handed me a mug, I guess from her bedside table.
I swallowed the lukewarm water and started to count. One, two, breathe in, three, four, breathe out. Five, six, breathe in, seven, eight, breathe out.
Gilly yanked on his own hair. “What happened down there?” he asked.
I looked down at my hands. I got nervous sometimes. Counting helped. Breathing helped. My hands became steady even though they had no reason to be.
“Everything got worse,” I told them.
I was trapped in the girl in the photograph.
Even after all that, I had no choice but to go to school the next day.
I spent all day with the pink phone in my back pocket. Gilly had launched a ferocious attempt to talk me out of it the night before, but Simone took pity on me once I started babbling about Texas. I guessed if anyone could understand a need to leave Howell, it would be her. She literally put her hand over Gilly’s mouth and hustled me out the door, telling me to try to get some sleep.
That didn’t happen. The new day was long and fuzzy. All I knew was there was a Barbie phone in my back
pocket that could go off at any time and turn me into a criminal.
My last class of the day was PE. After changing, I walked into the gym and stopped short when I saw the volleyball net set up. I realized with a surprised pang that team tryouts were coming up.
I snuck a look at the equipment cage, outfitted with a brandnew lock. Coach Guerin emerged with a net bag of game balls and caught sight of me. With a cough and a quick, but not quick enough, glance in my direction, she protected the view and entered the combination right up against her chest.
“Ahh, memories,” a voice whispered behind me. I whirled around and saw Ellie laughing behind her hand.
Fuck her.
I smiled brightly at her and strode over to the right back position of the court. My position.
There was an awkward pause until, with a shrug, Coach Guerin blew the whistle. “OK, seniors, you see the net. You know what to do.” Quietly, people jostled into positions until they were full, with a few hanging around the other side of the net before slowly, resignedly, walking over to my team.
“Evans,” said the coach and tossed me the ball. I rolled the white rubbery sphere around my wrists, feeling the familiar waxy vinyl against my fingertips. I flipped the ball up in the air, caught it between the heels of my hands. One more time, a little higher.
I flipped the ball in the air again, wound my arm back, and jumped, slamming the ball in a hard, fast beeline over the net; landed on the polished floor with two feet, a palm, and a grunt. I smiled when I heard Ellie shriek as she dodged the careening ball.
If I found the thief before Mason sent me on a delivery, I was free. Ellie was still my prime suspect. And I knew for a fact Ellie had a meddling mother and a strict father—she didn’t get along with them. She never kept anything at home that she wanted to keep secret.
So, when everyone else went down to the gym locker rooms at the end of the period, I peeled off from the pack and headed to the lockers proper.
Ellie’s locker was two down from mine. I crouched in front of the combination lock and held it to my ear.
Around the same time that a mania for séances swept the eighth grade, it became equally in vogue to learn how to pick locks. Not sure why. Maybe we had all seen The Italian Job one too many times at sleepovers. But whatever it was, one afternoon a bunch of girls trucked on down to the spy store on Sullivan Street and bought lock-picking kits, although they could never get them to work. I didn’t buy one, but I did go with them. I joked that the only lock I ever needed to pick was my locker combination, which, despite my usual ease with numbers, I was constantly forgetting. The guy behind the counter smiled and called me over. He leaned over and said, “That’s really not too difficult with a standard, school-issued lock.” And then he showed me how.
I held my breath and started moving the dial slowly to the right, digit by digit until, at 48, I heard a faint click. I started moving the dial to the left, slowly, slowly, slowly, until—22, click. My fingers shaking a little now, I went to the right again, slowly, slowly, slowly—
“What are you doing?”
My hand slipped off the lock. Still crouched on the floor, I turned and saw Ellie, Audrey, and Alexis all freshly showered and standing behind me, Ellie with her hand on her hip and a shocked expression on her face. All the concentration and focus I had felt a moment before shattered and crashed to the ground.
“Are you trying to break into my locker?” she said, looking appalled and also gleeful. “Oh my god! What is your problem, Kendall?”
I flushed and moved away, collecting my wits. “Is that your locker?” I asked, injecting sarcasm into my tone, the only weapon I could think to use against Ellie. “I’m sorry, I got mixed up. You know, I’ve been using up that Plan B pretty quickly, not getting enough sleep. My attention to detail has suffered. I guess I just forgot.” Her face didn’t change. I switched tactics, putting my hands up. “Look, I honestly thought it was mine. I’m brain dead from running around upstairs. Didn’t drink any water.”
This last part was said in a reasonable tone and was a pretty believable lie, so I stepped away toward my own locker, hoping the encounter was over.
“You aren’t going to at least change your shirt, Kendall?” asked Audrey, ostentatiously stepping away from me. “Don’t you think you should?”
Even Alexis, who had been looking a little uncomfortable up until then, choked on a laugh at Audrey’s tone, which was like a needle hidden in a silk scarf.
Last period was now a good five minutes over, and the hallway was packed. I looked down at my sweaty, shiny limbs and felt a sting of shame, knowing I smelled. I chose not to respond and just bent over my own locker.
Ellie snorted and said, “Hey, what’s one more bodily fluid to leak around Howell?”
I went rigid. It was like the first day of school when Audrey said I was a slut and I couldn’t breathe. Except this time, I felt my hands clench into fists on their own accord and a literal shiver of rage race down my spine.
Still facing the lockers, I said in my loudest and clearest voice, “I hope it’s not getting you too worked up, Ellie. I know how the showers in the girls’ locker room affect you.” I turned to look at her then and cocked my head in Audrey’s direction. Ellie turned bright red and walked quickly out of the hallway, Audrey looking quizzically after her.
As I watched her walk away, my heart sank a little. That was shitty of me—too shitty, even for me, to just shrug, tell myself Ellie deserved what she got, and forget about it. I didn’t care if she had a crush on Audrey or not, although after years of watching her obsessively shadow Audrey, I was pretty sure she did. Ellie was not a nice girl, but on a karmic level, was that something I just shouldn’t mock? Did I want to sink that low?
I needed to find a way to crack Ellie. But I wasn’t going to find it that day.
The Barbie phone went off.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Twenty-four hours later, I was standing on a deserted waterfront shaking like a flat-chested freshman in the locker room.
The Fish Hook looked different in the light. It was just a drab chunk of concrete with a door in the middle. There was nothing here to be scared of.
There is nothing to be scared of here. There is nothing to be scared of. This was the mantra I’d been repeating in my head since I’d left Mason’s office that afternoon and all the way on the long walk from the F train. I compulsively reached my hand back to cover the bulge in my bag, confirming for about the eightieth time that the bottle hadn’t somehow ripped a hole through the canvas and rolled down a gutter. Or, you know, to the nearest police station. The nearest police station with drug-sniffing/human-tracking dogs. But the medium-size orange bottle was still there.
I took a deep breath, stuffed my hands in my pockets, and crossed the street to the bar.
It was empty, except for a fat blond cat playing with a catnip toy on the bouncer’s stand, and infinitely quieter than it had been the last time I was there. Trev was alone behind the bar, slouching and yawning over a laptop. I put my hand on the cat’s head, rubbing its ear. At its meow, Trev looked up and his eyes widened.
“Miss Kendall,” he said, standing up, quickly replacing the surprise on his face with a smile. “What can I do for you?”
I looked closer and saw his eyes shifting back and forth, from me to the door to the bar. For some reason, just me being there was setting him on edge.
I gave the cat one last tickle on the neck. I slung my bag onto the bar and reached for the zipper. “Actually,” I said, “it’s what I can do for you.” I took out the bottle and set it in front of him.
Trev took a moment to respond. I thought I saw a question form on his lips, but then he smiled, straightened his shoulders, and sauntered over. He reached for the bottle and popped the cap, counting the tablets.
“All here,” he said cheerfully, pulling out bills and handing them to me. “Thank you kindly, mademoiselle.”
I shrugged, pocketing the cash. “Don’t thank me, thank Mason.
”
“I guess you two have become close,” said Trev. “That’s a shame. Do you want a drink?”
“Please.” Actually, I had to stay for a drink. Mason’s rules were that I had to socialize with buyers. It was good for not getting caught, he said, but I suspected that it was equally good for business.
To my surprise—and a little bit not—Trev put a glass in front of me and poured a double shot of bourbon into it, smirking a little. I smiled, thinking he didn’t know who he was dealing with, and drank the whole thing down in two gulps.
“You’re in high school, right?” he asked, sounding wary.
“Unfortunately.”
“True that. Another?”
I looked at the clock. According to the rules, I was supposed to stay in dorms and other places with sign-ins for at least an hour. Everywhere else I had to hang out, but it didn’t have to be for as long. I didn’t know how long I had to stay in an empty bar on a dead-end street.
“I don’t know if I should,” I answered honestly. I did still have homework to do.
“Would the boss-man not like it?” he asked teasingly, leaning toward me. “Is he very protective of the schoolgirl?”
He was getting closer than I liked. It couldn’t hurt to let people believe Mason would protect me. “I don’t think he thinks I need protection.” I leaned into his face, my lips coming very close to the valley between his nose and his cheekbone. “And I don’t, do I?”
Trev smiled again, hollowly this time. “I don’t see why you would. Sweet, pretty, helpful kid—who’d want to hurt you?”
“Who indeed,” I answered. He looked away first, and I grinned at the small victory. “I think I will have another drink, if you don’t mind.”
“You got it, kid.”
I watched him pour the drink. He’d been nice to me. Trev was a little sleazy, but he wasn’t going to purposefully hurt anybody. I suddenly felt guilty. I was having too much fun here.
“You know what, don’t worry about it,” I heard myself say. I collected my things and stood up.
The Accidental Bad Girl Page 11
